That's rather false.
Your reply, however, is a common misrepresentation from the right of people's arguments for the 14th amendment.


"racism" amendment?
Show me where the 14th amendment specifies it applies to race.
Better yet, show me what attribute the 14th amendment specifies that it applies to.


The writers intentionally left out specifying what it applies to.
Moreover, over the years the 14th amendment has been applied to race, religion, gender, handicap, national origin, and sexual orientation. (non-exhaustive list).


If you listen, people who argue about the 14th amendment applying protections for gays, they do not use it as a "blank-check".
Here's a brief description of the existing limits, which the right doesn't understand clearly demonstrates it's NOT a "blank-check".
Equal Protection Clause - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The author of your quote sounds like somebody who is bitter that rights and privileges he doesn't approve of are protected.

__________________
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
~Abraham Lincoln

The 14th was a Reconstruction amendment. It overruled of the Dred Scott decision's ruling that black people were not, and could not become, citizens of the United States. Ergo, it was a racism amendment.

It looks like you need to do some reading of the very sources for the links you are posting.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Understandable that he sounds that way to you, given that you don't agree with him to begin with. I would encourage you to read more of the post he made on his blog, if this is an issue you truly have an open mind about.

You're dodging the question.

If it was so specifically race related, why is "race" absent from the amendment?
If it is supposedly exclusively race related, why is "race" absent from the amendment?


No.
I understand the context.
I am not saying it doesn't apply to race.
I'm trying to show you a bigger picture to prove it applies to MUCH MORE than race, and was never meant to be exclusive...


Seems like you also could need an open mind in considering my point...

Quite frankly, referring to judges as "activist" automatically demonstrates the other person is closing themselves off and demonstrating a lack of an open mind.
The guy's arguments are nothing I haven't heard of before and they are incredibly short-sighted. Presenting a limited mentality that is rejected by the court system.
Note: NOT just the "activist judges" but by the judicial branches in general.
I understand why it appeals to people who want to take a very limited approach, but it's not practical.

__________________
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
~Abraham Lincoln

It's an irrelevant question. The important point is that they no doubt didn't intend it to be used as a blank-check amendment for ANY arena. With the interpretation needed to apply it to such other arenas as gender-based marriage issues, some SERIOUS interpretative license has been indulged in. Even the key case 'priders cite--Loving vs Virginia--as an attempt at marriage tie-in (albeit weak one) to their issue, the racism issue is still there. Yet it was not, in any way, about discrimination over gender.

Is that the best you can do? Anything else?

Judges are human, and therefore are fully capable of interjecting their own biases into judgments and rulings. Yes, they can indeed be activist. To pretend that's not the case is the REAL lapse in openness.

Here's a website

Why

It's not just the military. There are many jobs -especially uniform jobs- where the sexes are treated differently. I'm not saying this is right or wrong or arguing necessarily in favor of an ERA. I'm just pointing out that you can't claim same sex marriage as a gender discrimination thing with success because the fact is the constitution does not in anyway guarantee gender equality or outlaw gender discrimination.

ROFLMAO!
Are you kidding me?
THE ARTICLE YOU JUST QUOTED tried to make a point out of talking about things that are not specifically quoted in the constitution.

And now you turn around and pretend that's not relevant????

Come on man.
You can't have it both ways.


And, as previously pointed out, NOBODY is treating it as "a blank-check amendment for ANY arena"


Why?
Cause you don't agree?

Look.
You're indulging in misrepresenting the position of the actual pro-gay marriage arguments left and right.
And when your own arguments are used against you, you declare it "irrelevant".

And you have the gall to criticize "interpretative license" ?


And yet, it has been REPEATEDLY applied to gender.

Furthermore, "Loving v Virginia" has two major aspects that I'm fairly sure you're going to refuse to acknowledge:
1) It establishes MARRIAGE as a right in its quoted precedent.
Note: I'm not saying "gay marriage" is automatically a right.
I am saying that MARRIAGE is a right, and as such it invokes certain protections and requirements.

2) It also demonstrates a clear use of a test to validate marital discrimination.
Note: Again, I'm not saying that because "interracial marriage" went one way on this test that "gay marriage" is automatically assumed to go the same way.
Also, I'm not saying the same standards apply to both.

But it DOES show the test is applied.
People like you want to assume that the test should just be ignored for gay marriage. But that's not the case.



Dude.
You're ignoring a good chunk of the arguments being thrown at you.
Your disregard for what we are ACTUALLY saying as you misrepresent it with strawman doesn't impress...


I think you're failing to see the bigger picture here.
Just CALLING them "activist" is not an argument.

And I could just as easily proclaim the author of your blog is "activist".
Does that refute his arguments?

__________________
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
~Abraham Lincoln

Please. At least TRY to make yourself look you are trying here. How the heck could ANYONE think are gays are NOT using this as a blank check amendment when the amendment was never written with gay marriage in mind?

When 'interpretive license' is what holds up your whole house of cards, yes. I do have the 'gall' to point that out.

Examples of marriage are not synonymous with examples applied to gender. Just sayin' ... The examples you give here don't work.


Then like I said, we might as well start opening up the 14th Amendment to becoming the all-encompassing amendment that you want it to be used as. What a mess!

The equal protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment was first applied to sex discrimination only in 1971, and it has never been interpreted to grant equal rights on the basis of sex in the uniform and inclusive way that the ERA would.

There is no guarantee that the ERA would change the military.
As I've already mentioned, the military has its own standards justified by the mission. Due to the line of work, it is granted some leeway to make its own decisions.
The ERA is not automatic guarantee that women will be allowed to do everything that men are doing, especially when the mission can be impacted.

The ERA would provide a clearer judicial standard for deciding cases of sex discrimination, since federal and state courts (some working with state ERAs, some without) still reflect confusion and inconsistency in dealing with such claims. It would also clarify sex discrimination jurisprudence and 40 years of precedent for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who claimed in an interview reported in the January 2011 California Lawyer that the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendment, does not protect against sex discrimination.

This has already been addressed.
Scalia is an idiot and he was wrong.
Trying to quote Scalia is like trying to quote the KKK in a declaration of what rights blacks have...

The ERA would provide a strong legal defense against a rollback of the significant advances in women’s rights made in the past 50 years. Without it, Congress can weaken or replace existing laws on women’s rights, and judicial precedents on issues of gender equality can be eroded or ignored by reactionary courts responding to a conservative political agenda.

This is a specious argument.
I could just as easily argue that the ERA amendment could be overturned, thus its purpose is meaningless...

Moreover, this is an anti-argument to my question.
It's an implicit admission that there has ALREADY BEEN many advances in women's equality that have withstood decades of possibilities to be overturned...

Without the ERA, women regularly and men occasionally have to fight long, expensive, and difficult legal battles in an effort to prove that their rights are equal to those of the other sex.

This is thoroughly dodging the question.
Furthermore, it fails to demonstrate HOW the ERA would supposedly change this.

If there is a gender discrimination, it already goes to court under the existing legal environment.
Would the ERA somehow make these law-suits go away?

The ERA would improve the United States’ human rights standing in the world community. The governing documents of many other countries affirm legal gender equality, however imperfect the global implementation of that ideal may be.

I would agree with this.
But this would be symbolic. Not actually IMPROVING any existing deficiency in women's equality but rather just providing a symbolic improvement.

Quite frankly, the failure of the web-site to TRULY answer my question is simple acknowledgement that there isn't really any gap.

The military? No proof that the ERA would change the status quo.

__________________
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
~Abraham Lincoln

You're getting lost in your own propaganda.

OF COURSE we are saying that it should be used to grant gay marriage equality.
What we are NOT saying is that any circumstance would automatically fall through and be recognized as well.


Snarky is not an argument.

You are failing to address the arguments proposed to you.


You're failing to listen.
I already CLEARLY stated: "Note: I'm not saying "gay marriage" is automatically a right.
I am saying that MARRIAGE is a right, and as such it invokes certain protections and requirements."

And when the tests for those protections are applied to gay marriage, the justification for discriminating against gay marriage fail.
Specifically, the main REAL argument against gay marriage is a futile pretense that somehow "majority" justifies discrimination.
It does not. A legitimate state interest is required to backup the majority.
Imposed morality is not a sufficient legitimate state interest.
However, discrimination against other forms of marriage DO have better argument than just arbitrary opinions of what constitutes "moral".

You're going to ignore all that, aren't you...


You're not even trying to respond what I'm saying, are you...

Your claim is blatantly false.
When the 14th amendment test for equal protection is applied, some forms of discrimination do pass.
For example, pedophilia marriage would be blocked because child molestation harms children.
Protecting children is a tangible legitimate state interest, as opposed to arbitrary "moral" claims.
Ergo, laws requiring age restrictions are justifiable.

__________________
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
~Abraham Lincoln

There certainly are "tangible" legitimate state interests in not encouraging gay relationships by giving the stamp of state sanction. One look at the was STD rates are getting worse than they ever have among gay the number re higher among women than in the past. Other stats have made it clear that drug are rampant in the gay lifestyle.